Real-time temperature calculation and temperature prediction of wet multi-plate clutches

Many applications of wet multi-plate clutches are within safety-critical areas since malfunction or failure of the clutch is often equivalent to “loss of drive”.The main criterion for the estimation of damage and endurance of wet multi-plate clutches is the temperature on the friction interface. Owing to the thin, rotating geometry of the plates, determination of relevant temperatures in operation mode is almost impossible. State of the art is that there is no general applicable model for real-time estimation of clutch temperatures during operation.This contribution presents a validated parametric real-time temperature model that is applicable to various use cases and operating conditions. The model enables the calculation of the actual clutch temperature during operation and the prediction of temperature for future shifting operations.The model is validated by comparing temperature measurements from a component test rig and from the KUPSIM thermal clutch design tool with the developed real-time temperature calculation. The validity of the model for serial parts from industry and automotive applications under various load cases (clutch mode, continuous slip, non-steady slip) is demonstrated. The deviation between measurement and calculation are typically very small (< 5 K). The temperature prediction allows a highly accurate (deviations typically < 5 K) conservative prediction of the thermal load for future shifting operations.The model can thus contribute to the increase of operational safety of wet multi-plate clutches while at the same time facilitating optimal component design by reducing thermal over-dimensioning of clutches.